Harry Potter and the House of Gormless
by Maeva Claire
Summary: A comedy of manners starring an Angry Harry, a Cool Ginny, a Nagging Hermione, a Useless Ron, a Bothagendered Blaise, and A Psychologically Very Interesting Draco, featuring all but one of the following: Voldemort with tea, a Very Clever Plan, Kingsley Sh


Starring!

Harry James Potter as The Boy who Lived to be a Drama Queen

Ronald Weasley as An overgrown Gimp

Hermione Granger as the Queen of Nag.

Draco Oedepus Malfoy as an Interesting Psychological Case Study

Ginerva "Dude" Weasley as Amazing Wicked Cool Personality Growing Girl

Blaise Zabini as Itself

"_Ah, Voldemort, we meet again, at long, long, long last," hissed Harry. He was standing in the ruins of his old family home in Godric's Hollow, destroyed when he was one year old, the night his parents were stolen from him. The evening sky was scared with red and black, a storm rumbling in the distance. Standing five paces away from him was Voldemort, his skin as white as bone, his evil red eyes echoing all the fury of hell._

"_Indeed we do, Harry Potter," cackled Voldemort "How I have waited for this moment. Seventeen long years. I have been snatched from hell to earth to stand here today. You are mistaken, thinking you can destroy me. You know not the steps I have taken to become immortal – "_

"_You're wrong!" cried Harry, "I know all about the Horcruxes!"_

_Voldemort paled so that his skin suddently became a shade whiter._

"_But how-"_

"_And so, Lord Voldemort, I SMITE YOU!"_

_Harry raised his wand, the wind bellowing behind him in rage._

"_Avadaaa Kedaaaavraaa –"_

Harry Potter awoke with a start in a bed he didn't recognize in a room that was as familiar to him as the Spanish language would be to a Dutch gerbil. It took him a few moments to realize that he would be more successful at teaching said Dutch gerbil Spanish than he would be at finding his bearings, and that he was not, as he had dreamt he was, finally destroying Voldemort in a moment that was as aesthetically appropriate as a boat is appropriate for travelling on water.

To make matters a little worse, the room he was lying in was not of a quality that one could describe as being of a high standing. The bed he was in was old and rusted. Opposite him, a window sat broken, hanging unhappily in its termite-infested frame. The floorboards were rotting away, which Harry spied from holes in the lurid blue rug. The walls were painted of a colour that found it's equivalent only in the slush that pigs ate, and there was a hole in a door next to his bed that looked like a cannonball had been blasted through it. Harry rather suspected this to be accurate.

A few minutes later, and Harry had gathered up the courage to open the door of his room. He had rather hoped that he would find himself in some remote part of Hogwarts (even a cell adjacent to the Slytherin girls dormitory would have been lovely), but was disappointed to find himself in a hall that looked as run down and miserable as his room. He walked along it, noting the same decrepit rug and alarming wall colour, about 6 doors, and was about to turn the handle to one when he heard someone gasp behind him.

"_Harry?"_

It was Ginny. All 162 centimetres of her. If Harry had been the sort of person who took into account the size of people's facial features to contribute to their height, he would have made her out to be about 178. Her eyes were wide open (as much as Harry was momentarily alarmed that she'd lost her eye sockets), and her mouth hung open in a sort of exaggerated "O". If Harry had been less generous, he would have said she rather resembled that famous muggle painting, "The Scream". But Harry wasn't like that. He didn't compare people to Very Famous Paintings that hadn't had books written about them tying them to a great world changing conspiracy, and he certainly didn't take peoples facial expressions into consideration when approximating their height. He was the kind of person who could feel emotion that was entirely appropriate for the current event, and not stop to make up some nonsense about something else entirely.

"Ginny!" he half cried, "Oh thank God! What on – "

But what that something was that was on something else, Ginny never knew. At that moment came a terrible scream. Like a cat being run over, or Severus Snape singing. Harry bolted, tracing the origin of the scream to the third room away from where he had been standing. He threw open the door and saw –

Blaise Zabini, hugging himself tightly and rocking back and forth in rhythm to his own sobs on a bed identical to the one Harry had been lying in.

"Zabini?" said Ginny, having appeared behind Harry.

Blaise looked up, and looked thankful and terrified all at once. Like a child who'd called for help in the middle of the night after waking up from a horrible dream, and had his aunt Gertrude turn up rather than his mother.

"Please – please you've got to help me," he wailed, his tear-streaked face looking up them both pleadingly. Harry felt his back stiffen.

"What is it Blaise?" he asked, stepping closer, slowly "Is it Voldemort? Is he here?"

"No-" Blaise croaked

"What then?" interrupted Harry, "Is it the Death Eaters? Is this-" Harry felt a wave of nausea drain through him "Are these their headquarters?"

"No-"

"Are we in danger? There's a basilisk here, isn't there. I can feel it - I knew I'd have to face one again some – "

"No…" choked Blaise "It's not You-Know-Who, it's not the death eaters, and it's not a bloody snake Potter!" Harry took a step back. He'd never seen Blaise angry, but somehow, he reminded him of Hermione. With slightly prettier hair and better skin.

"Its…this…shirt!" wailed Blaise, pulling the thin material of the shirt away from his skin, as if it was burning him.

"Oh my god…it's _evil _isn't it? I knew it, I thought it looked evil, thought I sensed–" Harry whispered, taking a desperate step towards Blaise.

"Oh _shut up _Potter! It's not poisoned, for heaven's sake. _Look at it!" _shrieked Blaise

And Harry did. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with it. Granted it was a bit big on the boy, and the colours were slightly awry, but Harry saw no traces of dark magic.

"It's green and _orange_," sobbed Blaise "Green and _Orange. _I _look_ like a _watermelon,_ Potter. This is the most lurid, most despicable shirt I've ever laid my eyes on. And I'm _wearing it_. Oh my gosh…what did I do to deserve this? What did I do?_" _he cried, sinking his head into his hands in the same way you would expect someone to sink their head into their hands if their best friend was dead and the funeral director had misunderstood their song request and started playing "Wake me up before you go-go".

It took a few moments for Harry to digest what he'd just heard. Ginny stepped out of the shadows, looking mildly disgusted.

"So…you were crying because you look like a fruit,"" she muttered. Blaise nodded his head in his hands. Ginny looked like she was about to say something, when they heard a bang come from the hall, and Ron Weasley came skidding into the room.

"Harry! Ginny! Why are you - Where are we – What's –" he panted, then stopped and stared at Blaise. "Hey!" he shouted, "That's my _shirt!"_

Several things happened at once. Blaise looked like he was about to be violently ill, Ginny noticed Ron was wearing a purple blouse, Ron pulled a face that was Really Ugly, Harry formulated the beginnings of a heroic plan in his head, and a huge bang shook the room.

Harry bolted. The source of the sound, he realized, had come from below. He flew down the staircase, following his razor sharp seeker's instinct to a door, smashed his way through it -

And came to an abrupt stop.

There, in the room, stood Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy.

Only it was a Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy that were engaging in the most violent shouting match he had ever witnessed. Hermione had obviously thrown a chair in Draco's direction, for the corpse of one lay miserably on the floor of what could have been a living room once upon a time.

"_I don't have a bloody clue where we are, Granger!" _ shouted Malfoy, his face twisting itself into such a grotesque sort of fury that Harry stopped and really wondered at the technique. He imagined briefly that Draco probably got his inspiration from gargoyles on churches, then decided this was preposterous since Draco Malfoy would probably have shrivelled up and died if he'd gone any where near a church. Maybe he'd seen pictures of them, Harry thought. He let his mind wander to the photographs he'd seen of Really Old architecture in his school textbooks, and tried to remember if –

"_Liar! You've kidnapped me! I know you have!" _shrieked Hermione. To Harry's horror, she started to cry. "You've done something horrible to Harry, and to Ron. And I bet you insulted Crookshanks too," Hermione sniffed. "Evil people never do things half way."

"Hermione-" muttered Harry, deciding it would be a good time to get her attention. She spun around, and for a terrible moment, Harry thought she was going to scream, before she actually did.

"Harry! Oh my goodness I was so worried! Honestly!" she cried, throwing herself into his arms. "I thought something terrible had happened to you. I thought you'd gone off and faced Voldemort on your own, and you'd left us behind, and I was so worried because you really haven't been eating properly, and you know what happens to you when you don't eat properly, you lose all your strength, and I couldn't bear the idea of you facing Voldemort on your own without having had a proper breakfast."

Harry patted Hermione on the head solemnly.

"There, there Hermione. I'm ok. Ron and Ginny are here, they're ok – "

"I wouldn't say that," muttered Malfoy. Harry turned around and realized that Ron, Ginny, and Blaise, had followed him downstairs into the large room they were all standing in. Ron. Harry realised, was still wearing the purple blouse.

Everyone stared at each other for a while, realizing, quite properly, that they were all stuck together in a huge rickety house, and were obviously as lost as each other.

It was Hermione who spoke first.

"Well obviously, this isn't Hogwarts, and we're nowhere _near _Scotland, never mind England," she frowned to herself and tapped her fingers on an old wooden table. "We have to be somewhere in Europe, though. No other continent in the world has this sort of geographical landscape. Middle west, I think."

"I think, Ms. Granger, that you'll find this to be France."

Everyone spun around, and gawped at Remus Lupin, standing at the back of the large, empty living room.

"Professor Lupin!" they all cried in unison. Well most of them did. Draco, because he had an inferiority complex because of an unmentionable event in his childhood, was attempting to look carelessly snide in the background. He hadn't, unfortunately, inherited his father's natural gift for this, and was instead looking like he was a sixteen year old who had received yet another knitted jumper from his grandmother.

"You look like you didn't expect me to be here," Lupin said, momentarily vexed.

"We err…didn't," said Harry.

"Sir, we don't even know where we are," said Hermione, waving her hands around violently.

"Like I said," said Lupin, "France."

Everyone stared at him.

"I suppose I should tell you what's going on now," he said, scanning the room nervously. Everyone nodded. Except Draco, because he was bipolar.

"Well, I suppose there's only one way to put it," sighed " You lot are probably the most hated wizards in England,"

Ginny spat on the floor, Hermione frowned, Harry blinked, Ron's mouth opened slightly, and Blaise looked like he might burst into tears. Only Draco didn't look too surprised.

"At least, hated by Voldemort and his death eaters. That's why we have to keep you here. In this…house," said Lupin, somewhat apprehensively.

"I don't understand," said Hermione, sitting down on one of the rotten bamboo chairs.

"It's all quite simple really," said Lupin. "Voldemort and the Death Eaters want to kill you. Therefore, for your own protection, we're going be placing you in this house for a while. It has lots of really, really old charms on it, and is probably the safest place for you since Dumbledore died. Well…almost…but…well we decided we wouldn't put you in a Gringotts vault, you know, to protect you."

"Protect us," laughed Harry, sombrely "Killing Voldemort is my mission. I have to avenge my parents' deaths - Sirius's, Cedric's, Dumbledore's. You can't _protect_ me from my fate. If I hide from it, it will hunt me down, and I refuse to wait for it sitting down"

Everyone stared at him, Draco with less flattering contempt than the rest.

"Yes well," muttered Lupin "Don't shoot the messenger." He sighed "Look Harry, we're not really denying you that rite of passage, we're just saying, for the moment, it would be wise for you to lay low, you know, recuperate. Take some time off. We'll take care of Voldemort for you for a while. I know it doesn't make much sense, Arthur and Molly are looking into this plot hole, but – just let it go ok?"

"Let it go?" Harry gaped "But…Professor Lupin, It's my fate, my destiny, my choice-"

"Not now Harry," sighed Lupin

"But…Voldemort…he might…do evil things while I'm away-"

"I said _not now!"_ said Lupin

"But I always chase down the bad guy! It's my _thing!" _cried Harry, in desperation

"Oh, yes, well don't worry about that. There are a lot of other equally fulfilling hobbies for you to be getting on with. You know, I think I have a cousin who loved collecting stamps. If you want I could – "

"But why do they hate us?" cried Hermione, her hands held furiously on her hips "What have they got against us personally?"

"Well, alright, maybe 'hate you' and "want to kill you" weren't the most appropriate phrases. More like 'resent' or 'would find capture rather beneficial'" said Lupin, "From what we've established. Harry, they have that grudge against you. Hermione, Ron, Ginny, they want to kill you because they've figured out that you are the best way to get to Harry-"

"See?" croaked Harry, looking at Ginny Importantly. "I told you if we were together they'd try to hurt you. What if they kill you Ginny, then what? I could never forgive myself for anything that would happen to you at their hands, if you ever had to scream in pain, if they put you under the Imperius curse, I couldn't-"

"Well no, actually," said Lupin sheepishly. "You misunderstood me Harry. When I said, "get to you", I meant as a messenger service. Well obviously - I mean they are your enemies; they'd need to contact you to send you threats and things. Hermione, Ron and Ginny just provide the best communication line for that. It's just that, well, it really wouldn't be doing you lot any favours to have "Courier for Dark Lord" on your CV's so…"

Hermione looked totally appalled, Ron gawped, and Ginny snorted, rolled her eyes, and tapped her foot in impatience.

"Anyway," Lupin continued, uncomfortably. "Draco, your father hates you for publicly embarrassing him by refusing to have a skull burnt onto your arm and therefore, becoming a death eater, and then basically failing to carry out You-Know-Who's orders, thereby getting your father demoted to "Interior Decorator of the Dark Army", which isn't really a job. Apparently he felt that not giving you any Christmas presents this year simply wasn't enough, and therefore wants to 'stab you to death with a spoon'. I think that's just about accurate.'

"_Not a death eater,"_ repeated Hermione hoarsely "But - your arm - you have the Dark Mark, we saw you show it to the shop keeper at Borgin and Burkes, so he would – to show him you were serious."

"Excuse me? Dark Mark? What?" spluttered Draco, "Have you _seen_ those things? They're hideous! And they _ruin_ your skin."

Blaise had started to nod vehemently in appreciation.

"Oh absolutely! My cousin, Boris, he had to use skin balm on it for three months before his skin was smooth agai-"

"But you let the Death Eaters into the Hogwarts castle! You were on Voldemort's side! You made up a really cunning plan and – "

"And that makes me a sodding _Death Eater?_ Oh Granger grow a bloody brain. They used me because _I'm the prettiest_. No one suspects the prettiest. They'd suspect Goyle's underpants before they suspected me,"

"That's not true! We knew it was you," said Hermione, angrily.

"Of course you did, Granger. But from what I understand, you only knew it was me because you lot overheard a bunch of really convenient conversations and had a map that more or less spelled it out to you what I was doing, didn't it?"

"But then - what did you show Borgin in that shop?" shouted Hermione, half triumphantly.

To everyone's surprise, Draco giggled.

"A picture of what happened to the last person who treated me like a child," he grinned.

"What – Malfoy - what did you do to him?" whispered Harry, having turned an interesting shade of puce.

"Sent him to a _student hairdresser,"_ cackled Draco. "You should have seen him Granger, he looked like Stonehenge would if it grew an Afro, bit like you."

Everyone was very quiet.

"Yes, well – I'm glad we got that sorted out" muttered Lupin "Um, anyway - Blaise, your Death Eater parents have put a contract on your head for singing Cher's "Do you Believe in Love" with the family house elves as back up singers at a recent Gathering of the Really Evil Sort, and your mother is furious at you for your wearing summer colours when you are so clearly an autumn."

"Nonsense!" cried Blaise, "I _so _went to the Colour Me Magical people and they _so_ totally swore I was a summer! I have the colour layouts and all!"

"Nevertheless," said Lupin, tiredly, "They still really want you dead."

"Oh," muttered Blaise, "bother."

It was about eight in the evening, and Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Blaise, and Draco were all sitting in termite infested wooden white chairs in the back garden. Everyone was scowling at Draco, because he was skinny and had stupid hair. Draco was scowling at a bird, because it was skinnier than he was and, he suspected, had a better colouring. None of them were in a good mood. The fact was that in the next few months, they would be living in a run down house that was, more or less, their only source of protection, which the Order was making them renovate so it would be liveable if ever anyone needed to return there for safety, and that Lupin had confiscated all their wands for the occasion.

Draco had pointed out that this was a Really Stupid Plan. First off, even if he did want to escape the Death Eaters, he wouldn't go to sodding France. Secondly, building a bathroom didn't protect anybody from _Avada Kedavra. _Thirdly, he hated France. Fourthly, it was a really stupid plan. Fifthly, he couldn't speak French. Nevertheless, Lupin ignored him completely, and left them with a solemn good luck. Back home, he would shake his head, and decide he thought the author of this story had all the common sense of Mad-Eye Moody's wooden leg.

The six of them would soon after find that they had lost all their clothes. The ones they were currently wearing were the only ones they had been granted, and they all pointedly refused to swap clothes with each other (save Ron and Blaise, who had been wearing their own shirts for a few hours now. Blaise, somehow, still found the energy and will to complain about the smell of his.) They had, therefore, taken their first universal decision, and were going shopping the very next day.

But not before Draco threw a rock at the bird with better colouring than him because it reminded him of something dreadful his father had done when Draco was a little boy, and went off to bed.

Next chapter: A Very Muggle Shopping Trip, flamingos, the French, eating in a 'brasserie' and not a 'brassiere', and everyone gets together to make a really good plan.


End file.
